Using page residency to balance tradeoffs in tracing garbage collection

ABSTRACT

We introduce an extension of mostly copying collection that uses page residency to determine when to relocate objects. Our collector promotes pages with high residency in place, avoiding unnecessary work and wasted space. It predicts the residency of each page, but when its predictions prove to be inaccurate, our collector reclaims unoccupied space by using it to satisfy allocation requests.Using residency allows our collector to dynamically balance the tradeoffs of copying and non-copying collection. Our technique requires less space than a pure copying collector and supports object pinning without otherwise sacrificing the ability to relocate objects.Unlike other hybrids, our collector does not depend on application-specific configuration and can quickly respond to changing application behavior. Our measurements show that our hybrid performs well under a variety of conditions; it prefers copying collection when there is ample heap space but falls back on non-copying collection when space becomes limited.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.4 Processors
          Subjects: Memory management (garbage collection)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.2 Language Classifications

General Terms:
Algorithms, Languages, Measurement, Performance

Keywords:
compaction, fragmentation, object pinning, predicted residency